This situation lasted not for long: the next contender of the patriarchal throne was actually Paul Dabbas, supported by the Franciscan friars (who opposed Cyril Zaim, charged of simony) and by his maternal uncle Michael Khayat, very influential with the Sublime Porte.
In 1685 Michael Khayat succeeded to get from the Ottoman Empire a firman that appointed Paul Dabbas as Patriarch of the Melkite Church.
The fight with Cyril V Zaim ended in October 1694 when the two rivals came to an agreement after the arbitration of Salmon, an Aleppian Jew.
At end 1705 Patriarch Gabriel III of Constantinople had him elected as regent (proedros) Archbishop of Cyprus, an office Athanasius kept till early 1707.
[5] In 1716 the reigning Patriarch Cyril V Zaim made he too a Roman Catholic profession of faith and was received in communion with Rome on May 9, 1718.
His masterwork, History of the Patriarchate of Antioch from Saint Peter to 1202 was written in Greek and translated also in Latin.
He edited and published also liturgical texts, as a Liturgicon in 1701 (which was used by Melkite Greek Catholic Church till 1839) and an Horologion in 1702.